British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
